Cholesterol- crucial for brain development

Cholesterol crucial to brain development

ANI3 October 2009, 12:55pm ISTPrint Email Discuss Bookmark/
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cholest...how/5083625.cms


Swedish researchers have shown that a derivative of cholesterol is necessary for the formation of brain cells by Brain (Getty Images)

Professor Ernest Arenas, from the medical university Karolinska Institutet, says that the study’s findings may prove helpful for scientists in cultivating dopamine-producing cells outside the body.

In a research article published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, Prof. Arenas notes that the formation of dopamine-producing neurons during brain development in mice is dependent on the activation of a specific receptor in the brain by an oxidised form of cholesterol called oxysterol.

The researcher writes that dopamine-producing nerve cells play an important part in many brain functions and processes, from motor skills to reward systems and dependency.

They are also the type of cell that dies in Parkinson's disease, Prof. Arenas adds.

The current study has also shown that embryonic stem cells, cultivated in the laboratory, form more dopamine-producing nerve cells if they are treated with oxidised cholesterol.

According to the study report, the same treatment also reduced the tendency of the stem cells to show uncontrolled growth.

"Oxysterol contributes to a safer and better cultivation of dopamine-producing cells, which is a great advancement since it increases the possibility of developing new treatments for Parkinson s disease," says Prof. Arenas.

The researchers hoped that it will one day be possible to replace dead cells in the brains of Parkinson's patients with transplanted cultivated dopamine-producing cells.

Such cells can also be used to test new Parkinson's drugs, they believe.

Pesticides increase Parkinson's risk

(NaturalNews) A new study has provided one of the strongest links yet between pesticide use and Parkinson's disease.

A team of researchers from Duke University, Miami University and the Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence has found that people who were exposed to pesticides were substantially more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than closely related people who did not use so many pesticides, according to a study published in the journal BMC Neurology.

Parkinson's disease is a degenerative neurological condition resulting from the damage or death of the brain cells that regulate muscular movement. When cells become unable to produce the neurotransmitter dopamine, a wide variety of problems, such as slurred speech, stiffness, tremors, and problems with balance and movement, occur. Approximately one million people in the United States - one in 300 - suffer from the disease. In the United Kingdom, approximately one in 500 people, or 120,000 people, are affected.

The researchers surveyed 319 people with Parkinson's disease on their pesticide use, and compared that use to more than 200 healthy family members and other unaffected people. The purpose of comparing relatives was to control as much as possible for genetic and non-pesticide environmental factors by looking only at people with similar backgrounds.

"Previous studies have shown that individuals with Parkinson's disease are over twice as likely to report being exposed to pesticides as unaffected individuals," lead researcher Dana Hancock said, "but few studies have looked at this association in people from the same family or have assessed associations between specific classes of pesticides and Parkinson's disease."

People who had been exposed to pesticides had 1.6 times the Parkinson's risk of people who had not been exposed, while those exposed for more than 200 days in a year had more than two times the risk. The pesticides with the strongest connection to Parkinson's disease were insecticides and herbicides. Home and garden exposure were more strongly linked to increased risk than occupational use.

Broken down by sex, men who frequently used pesticides were 2.15 times more likely to develop the disease than men who did not use the chemicals, while women were 2.43 times more likely.

The researchers also compared rates of well-water drinking and living or working on a farm between people with and without the disease. They did not find a correlation between Parkinson's disease and any of these behaviors, which are commonly used as surrogate measures of pesticide exposure. Instead, the effect turned up only when they looked directly at chemical exposure.

Scientists have known for some time that the risk of Parkinson's disease is influenced by genetics, but the gene defects that have been linked to the disease account for only a small fraction of cases. Environmental factors have also been implicated, particularly in light of the fact that the disease was mostly unknown prior to the industrial revolution but has become a common ailment since then.

Prior studies have found links between pesticide exposure and Parkinson's risk, but they have not been thought conclusive. Kieran Breen, director of research at the Parkinson's Disease Society, cites a study of 10,000 Parkinson's patients that found only 1,000 had been exposed to pesticides over the long-term. The current study, Breen said, "strengthened the fact that pesticides play a key role" in risk of the disease.

"I think there is very strong evidence now linking [pesticide exposure and Parkinson's risk,]" Hancock said. The next step, Hancock said, is to discover the biological mechanisms by which pesticides increase the risk of the disease.

The findings of another study on the links between Parkinson's and pesticides, commissioned by the British Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, are expected this summer.
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Nutrition efficient in Parkinson disease and arthritis

(NaturalNews) The national Neuroscience 2008 conference is underway in Washington, D.C., presenting cutting edge research on the whole spectrum of diseases impacting the brain and nervous system. Breaking news from Johns Hopkins scientists presented at the meeting suggests several natural substances could be effective in treating or preventing some of these ills. Specifically, curry spice may protect the brain from Parkinson's disease (PD) and plain table grapes appear to reduce arthritis pain and inflammation.

Researchers know inflammation and damage caused by oxidative stress are implicated in the death of brain cells associated with PD. And curcumin, derived from the curry spice turmeric, has long been known to be a powerful antioxidant with anti-inflammatory properties. So researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine put these facts together and came up with a laboratory model of Parkinson's disease in order to see what effect curcumin has on PD. The result? The spice provided brain cells with strong protection from injury and death.

The research team tested curcumin on nerve-like cells that make a mutant form of the protein alpha-synuclein, called A53T, which binds together inside of cells, causing harmful changes that eventually lead to cell death. A53T alpha-synuclein caused half of untreated cells to die. But when A53T cells were treated with curcumin, only 19% of the cells died. What's more, additional research showed that curcumin also reduced oxidative damage to the cells.

"These results suggest that curcumin is a potential candidate for inhibiting the oxidative damage that leads to Parkinson's disease," said Wanli Smith, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Hopkins, in a statement to the media. "This common curry spice could be a weapon to protect the brain."

The healing power of foods was also demonstrated by a study using table grapes, a fruit known to have strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties due to a high amount of flavonoids. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine scientists say their study of powdered grapes showed the fruit reduced pain and inflammation in a rat model of arthritis. Rats were fed grape powder once a day after receiving arthritis-inducing chemical injections in their knees. A control group of animals got only sugar water. Over a period of four days after the chemical injections, the researchers tested the rats' inflammation levels by measuring knee swelling. The animals' pain responses were also measured by documenting their sensitivity to mechanical stimulation such as prodding of the rodents' paws.

The results showed the rats who were fed the grape powder could withstand stronger prodding than the sugar-fed rats. What's more, the scientists also compared the grape powder treatment with a commonly used anti-inflammatory drug, meloxicam, and found the drug alone – without the grapes – did not sufficiently reduce the animals' pain.

"I think there are two important messages here," Jasenka Borzan, Ph.D., a research associate in anesthesiology at Johns Hopkins, said in a press statement. "That consuming flavonoids through natural products like grapes can be beneficial to health in general and also specifically for reducing inflammatory pain; and that consuming natural products like grapes may also be beneficial in reducing the amount of medication necessary to reduce inflammation."